Back Again
by CrAzY4meh
Summary: Sometimes, you can't mention the bruises, so you mention the smiles that cover them instead.


**DISCLAIMER:**** I don't own any of these character, okay? Not even the "OC" who's actually not an OC, it's just that she's never given a name.**

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The girl is here again, Eddie notes with a smile, his expression flushed as he drops down from his waiting spot in the above trees hoping to scare her. It works, but rather than scream the girl just goes dead silent as she shrinks into herself, which is a shame since she has such a pretty voice.

"You're back again," he says instead, glad that the mask he's wearing hides his blush. The girl relaxes at his voice, and Eddie's emerald eyes roam over her too small figure in search of her newest bruises.

"I'm back," she agrees with a soft smile, her freckles glittering in the moonlight. Her voice is pretty, though the noise is barely a breath in the windy night.

"Today," Eddie starts talking as he plops beside her, familiar with their routine by now. He'll talk, she'll listen, and they'll tell each other all the little stuff no one else cares about.

They won't talk about their bruises, though. They won't talk about _why_ he wears his mask even though she'll comment that she likes it. They won't mention her fluffy brown hair that has a lopsided cut and sparkles in the dim light with traces of broken glass.

No, they meet to forget those very things, so instead Eddie boasts about his latest graves while trying to teach her to make them. She asks about the surroundings, and he'll tell her about how that man had the entire town show up to his funeral, or how that woman had exactly twelve ex husbands arrive to honor her, only to get into a fist fight that broke her casket and scared them off, screaming like little girls.

He likes making her laugh, because for once, he knows that it's just his. The sounds she makes, the way she moves to avoid putting pressure on a recent injury, her bright smiles that show such sweetness and pain.

She's the only thing he'll never put up with sharing. The only thing that _needs _to be his rather than his brothers'. She can't be passed down like some old mittens that _aren't_ his and never really will be.

The girl laughs a bit louder than she means to, startling herself as she flinches back from some invisible memory. He distracts her with a story about how the most recent stray his family took in jumped on top of Mr. Jenkin's mean old dog and road it out of their graveyard and sight.

She laughs louder, only to start crying. She blames it on the dust. They both know better.

.

Eddie can't leave. Albert's in the living room, messing with one of their newest animal rescues. The boy scowls at his older brother, rubbing at a recent bruise. He'll have to take care of the puppy properly soon. He can't let his brother kill it, after all. Not when it was sweet enough to lick Eddie's face clean and curl up in his boot.

Still, the puppy's a matter that will be taken care of tomorrow, before Albert wakes up properly. The problem at hand is that Eddie can't leave and it's nighttime. She'll be waiting for him.

He tries to stay up, but courtesy of long days of hard work and his young age, falls asleep before he can come up with a way out.

His mask hides the bags underneath his eyes as he buries the puppy that morning, the world a still grey with only the early rays warming the earth as he carefully places his puppy in the grave Eddie had handmade for it.

"Sleep well now," he tells his puppy with a smile that still holds the lingering sense of sleepiness. His eyes don't hold the sparkle they normally do, dulled by lack of sleep and the missed meeting.

He doesn't stay long, going back to get an early start on both his and Albert's chores.

..

He ends up misses several more nights, which is unacceptable. He stays up late, but his brain feels fuzzy from the lack of sleep and can't think properly. Albert doesn't help, taking interest in another animal just as soon as Eddie finishes making the last one his.

It's an annoying, repetitive process that doesn't seem to have an end, and Eddie's patience with his brother is beginning to grow thin.

He's finally out. Eddie small feet barely make a sound in the grass, recently dampened by spring rains. His eyes dart about in the dark as he sprints to their shared spot, using his unusually good eyesight to navigate the night.

When he gets there, apologies already spilling from his lips as he looks up, he stills.

She's not here.

...

Eddie's mind whirs as he takes in the area, empty yet again. He recalls badly hidden bruises and dirtied bandages that barely clung to her thin frame.

He connects them to injured pets and dried red stuck in between floor boards that only his sharp eyes noticed. Thinks of Albert's smug faces and shiny new boots that have discolored crimson blotches.

Sees the graveyard, in which Eddie has buried so many of the pets in _his _graves, though the animals belonged to his brother, who'd stained his hands in the game for his own cruel amusement. Remembers the cat that started it all, being the first thing to ever truly become his own, as it's crimson blood poured out onto _his _shovel and was settled into _his _grave.

Wonders if somehow, it's already too late to keep her as his own as he startles into the realization that he didn't just have to keep her from his brothers.

..

It's luck that he startles onto her one night, her legs badly injured by jagged cuts and her freckles covered by tears and dust as he's scouting out a spot for his next grave, shovel by his side.

His heart pounds as he helps maneuver her over to their favorite spot. He settles her down as she starts talking, for the first time about herself and the things they met in order to forget, and a question he never meant to ask slips out.

She looks up to him with a tear stained face as he grabs his shovel, staring down at her as red taints his emerald vision. He raises it as her brown braids whip in a sudden gust of wind, a certainty filling his heart. She allows a small smile to fill her face as words slip out of her mouth while her body stills further, the sound louder than the air as the shovel stabs into her heart, the girl falling back into the soil, blood soaking into the cool earth.

His heart thumps, crimson flooding his cheeks beneath his mask as he smiles, the stars reflected in his eyes.

"You're back," he whispers, glee bounding out of him with the words as his mind sprints forward, already planning out the perfect grave to lay her down in.

.

"_Yes," a breeze whispers._

"_Yes," a tree cries._

"_Yes," the grasses call._

"_Take me away from here."_

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**So I kinda wanted Eddie's descent into actually murdering this girl (I'm headcanoning her name as Sarah, but name her what you like) to be slow, even though this is pretty short. I hope I captured that? I mean, at first he seems like a relatively normal kid if you haven't seen/played the game. And then you start learning more about his life and...hobbies is probably not the right word, but I'm going to call them that anyway.**

**You can interpret the end as you like, though I meant it to be Sarah's answer to his question, which is why I tagged this as hurt/comfort instead of tragedy, though please tell me if you think another tag would be better. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this chappy of mine!**


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